Mile Square Real Estate

Jersey City sales updates

2007-11-16T10:16:00.000-05:00

77 Hudson St - This September developer K. Hovnanian opened the sales center for their 42 story, 420 unit condominium tower. The projects one, two, and three bedroom homes are priced from the $500,000s to $3,000,000. A four alarm fire that struck the building in early October is not expected to delay the project.

Trump Plaza Jersey City - The 50 and 55 story buildings of Trump Plaza Jersey City will be New Jersey's tallest residential buildings. With 74 percent of the first tower's 445 units sold as of early September, sales at the second tower are slate to begin in early 2008.

For more information on these, or any other projects, Contact us

Rentals on the Rise

2007-11-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

With all the condo conversion over the past decade taking hundreds of rentals off the market, it's no surprise rents in Hoboken are at an all time high. However, with Upper Grand's 1000 Jefferson switching to rental at the last minute, the dearth of new rental construction is coming to an end. With 1000 Jefferson now experiencing brisk leasing activity more of the new buildings you see going up are likely to be rentals.
The buildings going up on 7th St between Grand and Adams and the new Upper Grand building going up south of ShopRite are two buildings designed and being built as rentals. However, other building originally conceived or designed as condos have now switched course as well. Recent additions to the rental supply include Velocity at 6th and Jackson as well as The Cliffs on the west end of town on Paterson Plank Rd. This new supply will likely not lead to lower rents since it will only put a dent in the local rental shortage. Hopefully though, it will at least make the process of finding an apartment in Hoboken a little less painful.

End of the hunt for Foxtons

2007-09-27T18:20:00.000-05:00

Like warm beer and David Beckham, Foxtons Inc. looks like another popular British concept that will fail in the U.S. The residential real estate brokerage firm reported Wednesday that it may go out of business due to slumping home sales.

A representative of the West Long Branch, N.J. firm, which has branch offices throughout New Jersey and southern New York State told The Asbury Park Press Wednesday that it is considering bankruptcy protection and will lay off 350 of its 380 workers. It also said it will continue to keep 4,400 listings on the market.

Senior vice president John Blomquist told the newspaper that the company no longer has the liquidity to operate as a going concern and may have to consider bankruptcy.

Several calls to company headquarters and branch offices were not returned today, and the recording this morning said to call back during business hours.

Foxtons, which had great success in London, opened in the U.S. in March of 2000. It tried to differentiate itself from competitors by undercutting the industry's 6% commission standard by paying its agents salaries and charging customers only a 2% commission.

But that policy was later modified to get better participation in showing Foxtons' listings from other Multiple Listing Services listing agents who adhered to the 6% commission policy.

According to its website, Foxtons' claims a unique employee-based business model that includes "branded' company cars for agents, the most conspicuous of which are British Mini Coopers emblazoned with the company logo. It also said its agents are all equipped with the latest communication technologies and that it had Internet virtual tours and a Web page for every home it listed.

It also said agents work "8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week."

But apparently not this week, as calls to various Foxtons' offices went unanswered.

Marshall McKnight, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, which also monitors real estate licensing, said today that after checking with the state's investigators, "as far as we know Foxtons is still open for business. That's what they told us this morning.

"We've had several calls [from concerned Foxtons customers], so we're monitoring them for branch compliance, because if they do close an office they have to tell us. I can't explain why they're not answering the phone," McKnight said.

According to a source, employees at one branch turned in their laptops and company cars in the building parking lot at 11 a.m. today and were told the building was off limits and that they would be getting their paychecks tomorrow.

"I guess people will be able to get a great deal on a Mini Cooper with Foxtons logos all over them," she said.

Financial Week
By Frank Byrt
September 27, 2007

Record Real Estate transaction!!

2007-08-22T13:22:00.000-05:00

Condos get Hudson's top dollar

Who says the real estate market is cooling off?

It's still red-hot on the Hudson County waterfront, where a high-roller has purchased two condos on the top two floors of a Jersey City development at a whopping price tag of just more than $6 million. It's believed to be the highest price paid for a condo in the city's history.

Even if sold separately, either likely would have fetched more than $2.3 million, the previous record for a condo sold in Jersey City.

The unnamed buyer reportedly plans to merge them into a lavish two-story penthouse at the top of the 49-story building. Once completed, the two-story penthouse will measure 4,188 square feet. That translates to roughly $1,400 a square foot.

The purchase was made at K. Hovnanian's 77 Hudson St. development. The developer announced the sale last week but refused to divulge any details about the buyer - only about the development itself.

"The sophisticated design, hotel-quality amenities, luxury materials and finishes at 77 Hudson are exactly what buyers are seeking," said Tom Graham, of K. Hovnanian Homes, in a press release boasting about the sale.

Gershon Adjaye, a broker who deals with high-end real estate in Hudson County for Keller-Williams, said the price per square foot is on the high end in the county - but it's still a steal compared to prices in the New York City market.

"The truth is the square foot price is still much less expensive than penthouse condos in New York, which don't offer the same views," said Adjaye, who is not associated with the sale.

K. Hovnanian Homes opened 77 Hudson St. for VIP sales two weeks ago, with more than 300 appointments set for the initial sales release of condos.

Approximately 50 percent of the 100 residences released already have been sold, ranging in price from the upper $400,000s to $6.07 million. Thirty percent of sales have been broker generated.

"The waterfront is an extension of the New York market, and that is still very strong," said Jersey City Housing and Economic Development Corporation Acting Director Bob Antonicello, who defined the waterfront as everything east of Marin Boulevard. "The waterfront has now become separate part of the city, with very little linkage to the rest of the city."

The previous record of $2.3 million was the price of a penthouse condo sold at the Beacon, the site of the old Jersey City Medical Center.

HIGH-ROLLER HIGH-RISE
Monday, August 20, 2007
By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

For addtional information on 77 Hudson St contact MileSquareRealty.com

A look at the housing market finds that Hoboken, as usual, is slump-proof

2007-08-16T10:12:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from NJ.com Morning Rush for Thursday, Aug. 16
by CraigThursday August 16, 2007, 8:01 AM

The Star-Ledger has a look at the housing market today, and finds that most real estate agents are grim. There are too many houses on the market and not enough buyers. There are 72,000 unsold homes in New Jersey right now, compared to just 39,000 in June 2005. Statewide, the number of homes contracted for sale dropped by 5 percent from May to June. But in Hoboken (and Jersey City), sales activity is actually up by 12 percent.

Adams Square featured in New York Times "THE HUNT"

2007-08-13T12:50:00.000-05:00

July 1, 2007
New York Times
The Hunt
Falling in Love With Hoboken’s Prices

UNTIL their marriage last fall, Elana and James Nanscawen weren’t fussy about their living situation. Their one-bedroom rental in the financial district was perfectly adequate, if small.

“We planned so that the wedding was our focus, and we got that financial piece of it out of the way,” Mr. Nanscawen said. The same held for their honeymoon in Mexico. By spring, though, they were growing impatient to buy a bigger place where it would not be so inordinately difficult to do everything — cooking, entertaining, doing the laundry to her liking and keeping the place tidy enough for his.

When the two met three years ago, Elana Sebring, now 25, was sharing a three-bedroom rental in East Midtown with three friends from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, where she had studied fashion. The group paid about $2,400 a month.

Mr. Nanscawen, 34, an Australian, was living in a studio in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, for $800 a month. After he graduated from the University of Tasmania in Hobart, he headed for Kalamazoo, Mich., where his mother is from. He is now an information technology manager for the Thomson Corporation in the financial district.

They were introduced by mutual friends who invited them sailing. Only Mr. Nanscawen knew he was being set up. “On this sailing trip, I met my husband and my future,” Mrs. Nanscawen said.

Tired of the long commute from Bensonhurst, Mr. Nanscawen moved to Liberty Tower on Liberty Street, the neo-Gothic office building that was converted to a co-op in 1980. He rented a one-bedroom there for $1,750, which later rose to $1,950. His bride-to-be joined him.

They enjoyed the building — especially the doormen — but over time, little things loomed large. The neighborhood shut down early, and few of their friends visited. Construction noise was everywhere.

Worst of all, “It became agitating because there was no space in the apartment to put anything,” Mrs. Nanscawen said. Their wedding gifts sat at her mother’s house in Stroudsburg, Pa. Their two closets overflowed. Only once did the couple have a dinner party, inviting four guests for risotto. Everyone squeezed around a card table that doubled as the kitchen counter. “Never again,” said Mrs. Nanscawen, an accomplished cook.

She often ripped out magazine recipes, “and James was mad because there was no place to put them,” she said. “When I put something away in our tiny little apartment, I would end up forgetting about it, so I would leave the clippings out to remind me I wanted to make the recipes. We would have weekends where we would power-clean and find recipes everywhere.”

She longed to do the laundry herself, too. Their building wasn’t even near a coin laundry, so they spent at least $20 every week for pickup and drop-off service.

“Being in fashion, I care about my clothes,” said Mrs. Nanscawen, who works for Cockpit USA, which makes military- and Americana-inspired clothing.

“Tank tops would turn into tube tops,” she said. “We had a lot of stuff shrunken or ruined, texture-wise.”

They began their hunt with a budget of $550,000 to $700,000 for a two-bedroom apartment, an amount that was low for Manhattan. “We had some married friends hunting at the same time, and they would come back to us with the same numbers we were finding,” Mrs. Nanscawen said. So they asked themselves, “Do we want to fall in love with an apartment and find out it costs a million dollars, or look at things we can afford and then fall in love?”

A good friend who lived in Hoboken, N.J., had no trouble persuading them to look there. “Take the same amount of money, and it is night and day in terms of amenities you get,” Mr. Nanscawen said. Hoboken seemed to fit their personalities, too. “You walk up and down Washington Street and it’s all strollers, a fun atmosphere,” Mrs. Nanscawen said.

A listing for a duplex condominium on Madison Street led them to Katherine Petsinis, an agent at Liberty Realty Hoboken. They found the layout awkward, but Ms. Petsinis began culling listings for them. “They wanted something luxury but not too luxury, somewhere in the middle,” she said.

Most places they saw were perfectly fine, but “it just wasn’t something where you felt it was definitely it,” Mrs. Nanscawen said. “It was always a little, little issue that we didn’t want to settle on.”

For example, they loved the apartments at 1100 Adams Street, part of the Upper Grand development, but thought they were too far from the heart of Hoboken.

The Nanscawens liked another Madison Street apartment with a large kitchen. But it was a third-floor walk-up, and they worried about access for their parents.

“We were trying to talk each other into it,” Mr. Nanscawen said. “We were saying, ‘Can we handle it? The stairs are carpeted, maybe it’s not so bad, it’s only a gradual slope.’ ” But they immediately reconsidered. “What are we doing?” he said. “This is our first home and we are committing to it, so we want to make absolutely sure that this is absolutely the place, no doubt.”

Ms. Petsinis contacted them as soon as a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condominium in their price range became available in Adams Square. The 1870 building, formerly Public School 3, the Daniel S. Kealey School, was converted to rentals in 1996 and is now being converted to condominiums.

Inside, they found 12-foot ceilings, an open layout, a dishwasher, lots of light and overhead storage. The second bedroom could function as a combination guest room, home office and future nursery. “I looked at James and gave him the eyebrows-up this-is-it look,” Mrs. Nanscawen said.

The price was $615,000, with common charges of about $350 a month, and taxes of $7,600 a year.

To keep themselves from acting impulsively, the Nanscawens had not brought a checkbook. Now they feared someone else would like the place as much as they did. So they grabbed the PATH train home and returned the same afternoon, check in hand.

In the month since their move, Mrs. Nanscawen has been organizing her recipes in a binder and planning the menu for a dinner party for 12. She bought a color-coded set of laundry bags on a rolling rack. “It is awesome” to do laundry in the building’s laundry room, she said. “We let everything accumulate because we were so busy. I did five loads at once. I was happy as could be.”

When their new furniture was delivered, the delivery man told them he had gone to school there. “He said, ‘I’ve lived here in Hoboken my whole life, and I was really excited to see they did something good with this place,’ ” Mr. Nanscawen said.

For more on Hoboken Real Estate visit

Tarragon's Upper Grand gets approval for 12-story condo building

2007-04-28T18:12:00.000-05:00

Tarragon Corp. and locally-based URSA Development Group have received the necessary approval to begin construction on a 12-story, 112-unit condominium project in Hoboken, N.J. On Friday, the city's zoning board of adjustment granted final site plan approval for 900 Monroe, which is to be the first luxury high-rise development and seventh residential building in Tarragon and URSA's Upper Grand community.

With the approval in place, the developers will begin construction in June of this year. 900 Monroe is planned to include one-, two- and three-bedroom units, including 10 two-bedroom duplexes. In addition, the building will feature 7,600 square feet of retail space and an outdoor café. The development will be located adjacent to the 9th Street light rail station. In February of 2007, the Upper Grand community was awarded the National Association of Homebuilders' Best in American Living Award for "Best Urban Smart Growth Neighborhood/Community.

Hoboken's Luxury-Condo Builders Get Lifeline From New Residents

2007-04-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando helped make Hoboken, New Jersey, famous. Now designer Michael Graves and builder Robert Toll are making the waterfront town across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan a haven for the rich and famous.

Hoboken, a city with working-class roots, long served as a refuge of junior Wall Street analysts. Its newer residents include Governor Jon Corzine and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, as builders convert apartments into luxury condominiums with fitness clubs, doormen and shuttles to New York City-bound trains and ferries.

Demand for condos in the square-mile city of 40,000 residents is a lifeline for builders such as Toll Brothers Inc. that are weathering a yearlong decline in the U.S. housing market. Horsham, Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers has three condo projects under way in Hoboken. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. already has sold 33 of the 37 condo units in the W Hoboken, a luxury hotel that it plans to open next year.

``We're killing 'em in Hoboken,'' Chief Executive Officer Robert Toll said at a March conference in Las Vegas.

Nancy Chin, who was born and raised in New York, said she recently purchased a one-bedroom waterfront condo with an oversized terrace at Toll Brothers' Hudson Tea development in Hoboken. Those units start at $600,000.

``We always loved the city, but we wanted to be on this side,'' said Chin, 57, a real-estate agent and empty nester. ``Over there, you would have a view of a wall.''

Corzine's Abode

Corzine, a former chief executive officer of Goldman, Sachs & Co., moved to a rental in Hudson Tea when he was divorcing in 2002. He may run state affairs from the condo or from the governor's mansion in Princeton when he is released from the hospital following his April 12 automobile crash, said Tom Shea, his chief of staff.

At Hudson Tea, where Manning also lives, a 1,300-square-foot (120-square-meter) two-bedroom condo with cherry hardwood floors, gourmet kitchen with six-burner stove, marble bath, and 13-foot (4-meter) ceilings goes for $1.5 million. That's about $1,154 a square foot. Manhattan condos sold for an average of $1,142 a square foot last year, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc.

Hudson Tea has a residents' club with a theater, fireplace and business center; a fitness center; and an indoor children's play area. Chin said the amenities and location won her and her husband over.

Hoboken, birthplace of Frank Sinatra, was a thriving industrial hub of shipping and commerce in the 19th and early 20th centuries, home to products including Lipton tea, Maxwell House coffee and Hostess cakes. The city was portrayed as a blue- collar shipping port in the Oscar-winning 1954 film ``On the Waterfront,'' starring Brando.

Magnet for Students

The maritime industry crumbled in the 1970s as companies moved to bigger ports with deeper waters. A decade later, students began flocking to Hoboken for its affordable, renovated brownstones and townhouses and its easy access to New York.

Junior Wall Streeters moved in as the number of housing units in Hoboken jumped 14 percent from 1990 to 2000. The 2000 U.S. Census showed that 98 percent of the city's housing units were occupied, 77 percent by renters.

In 2004, Toll Brothers began converting apartments to condos in what were once Lipton Tea buildings. The company is renovating an adjacent warehouse into residences called Harborside Lofts, and it has cleared away nearby Maxwell House structures to make way for the four-building Maxwell Place, which will have more than 800 units.

Architect Graves designed the lobbies, elevators and hallways for Maxwell Place, as well as the condo interiors. The development has a heated rooftop pool and garden.

Copying New York

``We've taken the best-in-show of what we find in Manhattan and we've brought it over here,'' said Henry Waller, project manager for City Living, the urban development division of Toll Brothers.

Toll Brothers is targeting Manhattan emigres seeking more space and features, empty nesters from the suburbs, and families who don't want to give up urban life, he said.

``Some people feel it's a bit nicer living outside of Manhattan and looking at it than it is living in it,'' said Brian D. Meunch, of BrianDavid Realtors, a Hoboken real-estate agency.

Not everyone agrees. Hoboken is a nice place to visit but not somewhere he would want to live, said Oliver Ryan of New York housing blog www.apartmenttherapy.com.

``Hoboken seems very 1990s,'' Ryan said. Even so, he said, it's a smart real estate investment.

Michael Barry, whose Hoboken-based Applied Development Company LLC is building the W Hotel, said residences there will range from $1.8 million to $2.7 million. Monthly fees of about $1,200 will pay for services including maids and valets, he said. Spa treatments, pet walkers and in-home botanical services are extra.

A similar, upper-floor apartment on the water would cost a minimum of $4 million on the New York side of the Hudson, Barry said.

``It's a lifestyle choice that wasn't available 10 years ago, when if you wanted a doorman building with a concierge and swimming pool you didn't have a lot of options there,'' Barry said. ``But you do now on this side of the river.''

By Terrence Dopp
April 25 (Bloomberg)

Amenities include Granite, Stainless Steel, Parking, Elysian Charter School

2007-03-31T16:36:00.000-05:00

One of the hottest new amenities being offered in upscale urban condominium developments doesn’t have anything to do with granite in the kitchen, marble in the baths, steam rooms or simulator golf. It’s school.

As cities like Hoboken and Jersey City, once havens for college-age renters, have been transformed into condo-heavy communities brimming with young professionals, the population of babies and toddlers has inevitably increased.

Now, developers are striving to offer residents with children incentive to stay in their urban homes — by bringing high-quality schools right to their doorsteps.

Most of the schools being ensconced in large developments are private, but not all: in Hoboken, the developer Lawrence Bijou will build a 46,000-square-foot facility for the Elysian Charter School within a large residential building he plans to create in what is now a parking garage on Park Avenue. Charter schools are tax-supported but independently run.

Some developers even go so far as to say schools within large developments might become a must-have. “As a developer, you can put in your best finishes, add more and more amenities, offer better views, lovely architecture, But at the end of the day, you won’t be successful unless you provide the essential services that people find most important.”

Excerpts from New York Times
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: April 1, 2007

Rent or Buy?

2007-03-16T21:49:00.001-05:00

Owning Vs. Renting - It Makes Dollars and Sense

Over the last ten years, the cost of rental housing in the U.S. has increased an average of 3% per year.

The apartment or home that you rent for $1,600 a month will cost you more than $2,150 a month 10 years from now.

The Federal Reserve Board estimates that homeowners have a net worth almost 36 times more than that of renters.

Ginnie Mae Rent vs Buy Calculator

Andres Garcia
http://www.milesquarerealty.com

Look back!! Was that the bottom?

2007-03-13T20:50:00.001-05:00

While Hoboken and Hudson County real estate prices are down about 10% from their peak in 2005, many home buyers remain on the sidelines waiting for the "bottom." Unfortunately, the only way you know you hit bottom is when you can look back and pinpoint the turning point. With a strong January & February, 2007 is showing that last fall may have been the "bottom" everyone was hoping to jump in on. 2007 has brought the return of bidding wars, busy open houses, and stressful multiple offer "highest and best" sales. While there's "cautious exuberance" about a better real estate market for sellers in 2007, the NY Times reports "for January, at least, both prices and the number of signed contracts rose in double-digit percentages compared with the same month in 2006." All this indicates that those remaining on the sidelines have missed the "bottom" and may soon see increasing housing prices.

Andres Garcia
http://www.milesquarerealty.com

Signs of an Upswing - Many Condos Drop the Enticements

2007-03-11T17:56:00.000-05:00

A great New York Times article. The shift is visible in the Hoboken market.

NEW YORK TIMES
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: February 25, 2007

There are signs that the residential market slowdown is over — at least for new condominiums, especially if they are near the water. At a number of condo projects, sales are going well enough that buyer incentives like free upgrades or discounted prices are being reduced or eliminated.
“We still like to incentive-ize our buyers,” said Chris Winslow, director of marketing for the northeast at the Tarragon Development Corporation. “We felt the need to retool, though, because of the strength of the market.”

Last month, Tarragon cut two juicy incentives that it had been offering at its Trio condo complex in Palisades Park: a $10,000 credit toward closing costs and a 4 percent discount off list prices.
In downtown Hoboken at Tarragon’s 1100 Adams building, an incentive of up to $9,000 toward closing costs was reduced to $5,000, and as of March 1, buyers will no longer be eligible for a year’s free common charges, Mr. Winslow said.

And in Edgewater, where Tarragon is building a high-rise tower beside the Hudson River called One Hudson Park, all incentives have been removed. The major come-on had been an offer of two years without monthly common charges, which was worth up to $25,000, depending on the size of the apartment.

The Edgewater complex will begin opening for occupancy by summer, and sales have been brisk in recent months, Mr. Winslow said. “We’ve noticed stronger sales at One Hudson Park, Trio and 1100 Adams since about mid-December,” he said.

When sales opened earlier this month at another Edgewater project, Peninsula at City Place, buyers were offered a year’s free common charges. But within 10 days, 20 contracts had been signed, and Savanna Partners, the developer, decided it didn’t need to stimulate sales at the 201-unit converted rental apartment building, said Sean Osher of CORE Marketing, which is handling sales promotion.

“We are not going to continue doing it because we don’t have to,” Mr. Osher said. “We’ve evidently had the good luck of coming to the market at the turn of the upswing.”

Mr. Osher and other market watchers said they could only speculate as to why the residential market is picking up along the Jersey “Gold Coast.”

Some developers and sales agents mentioned the plus-size year-end bonuses handed out to Wall Street financiers as one factor spurring home purchases generally. In addition, the exceedingly tight — and pricey — market in Manhattan may be producing a significant “spillover effect” along the western banks of the Hudson, they said.

Furthermore, the Jersey waterfront has begun to exert its own appeal to people who might be Manhattan-centered, according to Benjamin D. Jogodnik, a senior vice president at the City Living division of Toll Brothers.

“Two or three years ago, all that mattered was that you could get a 40 percent price break coming across to the Jersey side,” Mr. Jogodnik said. “It was all about the price break, and people thought they were compromising to gain dollars and cents.

“Now, with the Hudson County side coming to fruition, builders really delivering and amenities like a 30 percent increase in park space in Hoboken becoming reality, and new retailers coming, people are seeing how neat it all is — and they are showing up in droves at our sales centers,” Mr. Jogodnik said.

For City Living’s latest condo project in Hoboken, the high-end Harborside Lofts now being created in an old warehouse building at the Hudson Tea complex, no incentives are being offered — and yet, as many as 75 home shoppers show up each weekend day, he said. Sales opened last fall, and the 115-unit building is now about 70 percent sold out.

At Maxwell Place in Hoboken, which Toll Brothers is building in partnership with the Pinnacle Companies, Mr. Jogodnik said 300 of 376 units in the second tower have been sold preconstruction.

He and other developers said that distinctive condos at the high end of the scale seem to be the hottest properties right now — even at locations that are not on the waterfront.

In Chatham, Sterling Properties is building a group of 56 town homes with prices starting at $1.225 million. Twelve of 18 units in the first phase of development at the project, which is called Rose Valle, were sold over the last few months.

In Wall, where Franklin Development Group is building Cedar Hollow Estates, a group of 11 condos set in horse country, free upgrades that were worth as much as $100,000 and included an in-home elevator have been eliminated. Interest in the six homes that remain available — all of which offer up to 5,000 square feet and are priced in the $1 million range — is sufficient to warrant this, the developers said this month.

Over all, signals point to the possible end of the housing decline in New Jersey, said Jeffrey
Otteau, who analyzes market data for brokers. December was the first time in 16 months that there was a higher number of homes sold than in the comparable month a year earlier, he recently reported. Sales were up 2 percent, according to Mr. Otteau.

He is compiling comparable figures for January and said he expects sales to be up even more.
Mr. Otteau does not compile separate figures for condo sales. But he said that in Hoboken — where large numbers of condos have been sold in recent years — the pace of sales was up 55 percent in December 2006 over December 2005.

Mr. Osher, the marketer of the Peninsula at City Place in Edgewater, said, “I think we’re seeing a general rising tide,” after 250 brokers and potential buyers attended a party 10 days ago at the opening of sales. “I spoke with brokers from all over the area today, and everyone is saying things are definitely looking up.”

Wall St bonuses to impact real estate market

2006-12-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

Unbelieva-bull spending spree

BY ELIZABETH LAZAROWITZ
DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER
Thursday, December 14th, 2006

The extraordinarily huge bonuses being paid across Wall Street won't just benefit top investment bankers and traders - the entire city will enjoy a payday.
A day after Goldman Sachs revealed it would be paying their staff $16.5 billion in bonuses, the Daily News visited businesses across the city to gauge the effect of the spend, spend, spend mentality.
"The only time I saw something like [this] was in the 1980s, when the world was insane," said BMW of Manhattan President Jeff Falk.
Wall Streeters - like one over the summer who bought a $90,000 convertible off the showroom floor so he could drive it to the Hamptons that day - are feeling much more comfortable about spending, he said.
The downtown BMW showroom is already buzzing with customers checking out cars in anticipation of the life-changing checks, with other major Wall Street powerhouses expected in the coming days to disclose fabulous payout plans similar to Goldman's.
"You can feel it when things are going well down here," said Sean O'Sullivan, who sells golf equipment in lower Manhattan at The World of Golf. "Guys are traveling and playing a lot of golf."
While customers can get a full set of clubs for as little as $300, O'Sullivan, 41, of Manhattan, has customers willing to pay $3,500 for top of the line clubs from Callaway, Ping or TaylorMade.
And practically a stone's throw across the Hudson River at the swank Bayonne Golf Club, membership applications are flowing in, said club secretary Jim Coady.
Touting itself as accessible from Manhattan by private yacht and helicopter for those who don't want to bother with highway traffic, the club requires a $200,000 deposit and $10,000 in yearly dues.
"There's definitely a benefit from the financial success of Wall Street," Coady said.
While it's easy to be envious, a city resident getting a $25 million bonus can also expect a massive income tax bill. The city tax bite alone would total an estimated $900,000, said city Office of Management and Budget spokesman Raymond Orlando.
With Greg Wilson, Lore Croghan and Phyllis Furman
Huge Wall St. bonuses pay off for whole city
At the Cartier store on Fifth Ave., one Wall Streeter recently snapped up diamond earrings for his wife. Each was a hefty 2%BD-carat stone surrounded by tiny pave diamonds.
"I know she's going to love them," saleswoman Cynthia Fiske said. "They were just stunning."
Their price tag was stunning, as well: $75,000.
Repeat clients are trading up and "buying bigger," she said. "After 9/11, it was really a climb to get back up," said Fiske, who has worked at Cartier for nine years and lives in Manhattan. "It's like the business is back."
Wall Street's gold rush is already paying dividends for high-end New York caterers like Great Performances.
In the past month alone, the chic party producer has been pulling off 20 to 25 parties a week for financial firms, not to mention private events for partners and managers.
One brokerage firm agreed to the hefty price of $450 a head to toast its managers with $200 bottles of wine, a raw bar with clams and oysters, caviar and grass-fed beef. "They're all looking for trendy, elegant and chic," said company President Dean Martinus.
Wall Street's bonanza "is great news for Great Performances and for the industry," the company's CEO, Liz Neumark, said. "We think 2007 will be our strongest year in a long time," with one-third of the business coming from the financial world, Neumark said.
This could finally be the time real estate broker Joseph Bongiovanni has enough cash for a down payment on a Cape Cod cottage he has dreamed of buying for a decade.
Wall Street bonus babies have been pouring into the sales office of the Onyx Chelsea condo development, which he is marketing. One investment banker came to an open house and signed a contract on a $2.65 million penthouse the next day.
Bongiovanni, 41, of Manhattan, doesn't have much time to actually spend his money right now. He's working up to 12-hour days, six or seven days a week. Before the bonus frenzy began, he was putting in eight-hour days, five days a week.
But he's not complaining. Far from it. "Honestly, it is exhilarating," he said.
Mona Vijolan, 27, of Glendale, Queens, tends bar at Nebraska Beef, a Stone St. steakhouse in the shadow of the Goldman Sachs building. Lately, brokers haven't blinked at the $63 price when ordering "The Stockbroker," a hunk of aged prime rib served with a half-pound lobster tail.
"This is the month for bonuses and when the market's been good, our customers are even more generous than usual," said Vijolan, who's married and has a 4-year-old daughter. "This year has been great," she said, adding that $100 tips are commonplace.